North

One of the advantages of coming a bit further north is the light lasts longer in the evening, and so you can get a photo like this after 9pm.

After another full day in my conference I headed 45 minutes up the coast to Berwick-upon-Tweed for a mooch and some more pre-season football. Quite why I didn’t make this excursion more often in the dozen years that I lived in Newcastle I don’t know; from memory I only made one day trip here in that time. It is a lovely town, and in a fine spot, so I really need to come back when I have more time to explore.

For this evening I ambled down through the town and across the old bridge toward the football. Tweedmouth Rangers were hosting Tweedmouth Amateurs at Old Shielfield Park, which sits cheek by jowl with the more famous Berwick Rangers ground (indeed they share the toilet block!). All three clubs play in various Scottish leagues, so although still in England in the football world this was my first Scottish match.

Rangers were in theory the higher ranked team but it was Amateurs that were comfortable 3-1 winners. At this time of the year the matches are mainly training and fitness exercises, but there was some good quality and two excellent goals that pleased the hundred or so people in attendance. See my Twitter post for a couple more images from the match.

I didn’t have to rush on the way back to the station, so went via the newer (1928) Royal Tweed Bridge which afforded this fine view of the town as well as upstream views of the town and downstream views of the estuary. And of course lots and lots of swans.

As it happened the train back was running half an hour late, but that meant I could sit on the platform watching and listening to around fifty swifts swooping around above me. And I should get a stellar refund on my £6.30 advance ticket.